So-called "unified" remote control transmitters are known for controlling a television receiver and one or more peripheral devices associated with the television receiver. It is a prerequisite for such a "unified" remote control transmitter that the codes sent by the remote control transmitter for various functions of the peripheral devices correspond to the codes allocated to these functions in the devices. If the television receiver with its remote control transmitter and the peripheral devices are produced by the same manufacturer, this will generally be the case. In this situation, the control codes for the various function for the various devices are known in advance by the manufacturer and may be stored during manufacture in the "unified" remote control transmitter.
If, however, the television receiver and the peripheral devices are manufactured by different companies, the remote control codes of the television receiver and peripheral devices may not match.
Of course, in this case, it is possible to use the individual remote control transmitters which may be provided with respective ones of the television receiver and peripheral devices This leads to an inconvenient clutter of remote control transmitters.
To solve this. problem, remote control transmitters capable of controlling a television receiver and associated peripheral devices which are produced by different manufacturers and which therefore may not share a common code configuration, have been devised.
For example, so called "universal" remote control transmitters, in which the remote control codes for various functions of various devices manufactured by different companies are stored in advance during manufacture, are known. Such a "universal" remote control transmitter is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,774,511 (Rumbolt et al.). This solution requires a large memory. More importantly, it does not readily allow for expansion (i.e., adding new devices).
So called "reconfigurable" remote contol transmitters which are capable of learning the remote control codes for various functions of various devices manufactured by different companies, are also known. Such remote control transmitters are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,623,887 (Welles, II) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,802,114 (Sogame). This type of remote control transmitter is a special purpose device which includes an infra-red (IR) transducer and associated processing circuitry for receiving IR remote control messages to be learned from various remote control transmitters, in addition to a conventional IR transducer and associated circuitry for transmitting IR remote control messages.